Exactly - "Things are necessarily crappier on the web, of course."
I wonder, though. Could there be a "code has changed" warning from the client? I mean, authentication should be pretty damn stable, and maybe even universal. If someone does modify the page, it'd be nice to know if that change was reflected on other sites, and it'd be nice to know that someone I trust had signed off on it (cryptographically).
A simple alternative is to build it into browsers. A password field could generate a salt per-domain and automatically encrypt any queries to password-fields. The server doesn't even need to know about it. You'd have to be more than a little careful building it, obviously, and you'd have to find a way to deal with passwords used on more than one site, but it could work.
I wonder, though. Could there be a "code has changed" warning from the client? I mean, authentication should be pretty damn stable, and maybe even universal. If someone does modify the page, it'd be nice to know if that change was reflected on other sites, and it'd be nice to know that someone I trust had signed off on it (cryptographically).
A simple alternative is to build it into browsers. A password field could generate a salt per-domain and automatically encrypt any queries to password-fields. The server doesn't even need to know about it. You'd have to be more than a little careful building it, obviously, and you'd have to find a way to deal with passwords used on more than one site, but it could work.